Punctured, Bruised, and Barely Tattooed(63)

“I love you, Kory. I don’t know how it happened, but it did…and I don’t want to lose you.”

Oh. So he really did feel the same way about her that she did him. She couldn’t catch her breath, because she almost couldn’t believe it.

No. A teardrop fell then, and Kory found that so strange, because she hadn’t cried over anything that didn’t have to do with her childhood—Art or her mother—since she had been a little kid. Why was she shedding a tear now?

Well, she was, and there was no getting around it. If anyone deserved emotion from her, it was Stone. She just found it odd that she was feeling things so deeply…she hadn’t felt anything like this in what seemed like forever. She forced the words through her lips. “I love you too, Stone.”

And then he kissed her…and the rest of the world melted away.



The young woman hopped up on the table and sat down. Kory wiped the small pad around her eyebrow area but the girl—eager and excited—kept her eyes wide open. “Why don’t you close your eye just for a second?”

While the area dried, Kory told her she could open her eye up again while she sprayed the piece of jewelry with sanitizer. No way was Kory going to tell the woman, but this was to be her first piercing. Kory’s first piercing on someone else.

She grabbed the tiny felt pen and touched above and below the girl’s right eyebrow near the outside corner of her eye. Then she peeked out of the doorless room. “Stone, I’m ready.”

“One sec.” Kory continued to eyeball the dots, just to make sure they looked okay to her. The girl smiled, and that was when Kory realized she probably needed to say something. “I’m still kind of new at this, so I want him to make sure I’ve got everything right.”

The girl grinned and nodded. “Cool.”

“Is this your first piercing?”

“Yeah.” She chewed on the piece of pink gum in her mouth for a few seconds and then asked, “How bad does it hurt?”

Kory knew she herself was probably considered an expert, considering she’d been pierced so many times. “It’s not too bad. It feels kind of like a sting, but then that’s it.”

“Seriously? That’s all?”

Kory nodded. “Yeah. My eyebrow piercings brought kind of a tear to my eye but then it was all over. I mean, yeah, it hurt for a while if you pushed on them or something, but that was it. You won’t go around feeling like you’re in pain a lot or anything. The main thing is to keep them clean and try not to get makeup in the pierced area.”

She felt Stone’s presence before she saw him. He nodded at the girl. “Hi. I’m Stone.” He scrutinized the dots and said, “Looks good.” He looked at Kory. “You ready?”

“Yeah, I think so.” She took the forceps and needle into her gloved hands and then looked in his eyes before turning her attention to the girl. Her mind wandered back over the past year, marveling at how things had changed. With Stone’s encouragement, she’d finished the fall semester but then quit school, not because she didn’t think education was important, but because she wanted to do something that would make her happy. She and Stone had talked about her future for hours and hours, and she admitted that she would love working in a shop like Stone. She wasn’t an artist but she wouldn’t mind running the cash register or…Stone suggested piercing. That way she would have a viable skill that she could take anywhere.

He asked her to move in with him right after that. She did so with the blessing of Tina and Lacey, because the three girls still had their Wednesday lunches together. Stone even asked to meet her foster parents. She hadn’t seen them since moving out and thought maybe they didn’t care, but they were thrilled to see her and the guy who was turning out to be the love of her life.

Stone continued to amaze her on a daily basis with the thoughtful things he said, the way he looked at her, and how he made her feel more and more like a beautiful woman every waking moment. She felt like she’d never be able to return the favor, but she hoped she could try. One way was by helping out with his business.

She let her eyes drink him in before getting down to the work of piercing the girl’s eyebrow, but she let the warmth of Stone’s visage settle in her mind, calming her as she began the work of her new career. She couldn’t think of anywhere else she’d rather be than with Stone, and she didn’t care what they were doing. Having him behind her, supporting her like he always did was the best feeling of all, and with him there, she could do damn near anything.